Let’s just consider concert production as a commons. 

In western Massachuetts, where I live, Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares represents a creative mashup of the CSA farm model (community-supported agriculture) with concert production. Instead of paying upfront for a season’s supply of vegetables, people pay for a September-June season of ten jazz concerts. It’s like a subscription model but it’s more of a community investment in supporting a jazz ecosystem. Talented musicians get to perform, fans get to experience some cutting-edge jazz, the prices are entirely reasonable for everyone, and a community spirit flourishes.

As the group explains:

Our members purchase jazz shares to provide the capital needed to produce concerts with minimal institutional support. A grassroots, all-volunteer organization, we are a community of music lovers in Western Massachusetts dedicated to the continued vitality of jazz music. By pooling resources, energy and know-how, members create an infrastructure that is able to bring world-class improvisers to our region.

Cofounders Glenn Siegel and Priscilla Page decided to launch Jazz Shares after realizing that there were many more jazz musicians in the region than there were commercial venues to support them. As a longtime concert producer at the Fine Arts Center at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Siegal lamented, “Each season I would receive many more worthy gig requests than I could honor. With a limit on how many University concerts I could produce each year (six), and without the personal resources to just write checks, I got tired of saying ‘Sorry, no’ to some of my musical heroes. I knew there must be another way to bring these great musicians to town.”

As an economist might put it, there was a market failure (demand did not induce an adequate supply). So commoning came to the rescue! 

Approximately 95 fans pay $125 to underwrite ten local jazz concerts a year in a variety of regional venues – colleges, clubs, performance spaces. Business sponsors and single-ticket sales augment these revenues. But it’s not just about the money. It’s about building a community through mutual aid and money-lite commoning. As reported by New England Public Radio, Siegal and Page have been known to cook for visiting performers. Sometimes Jazz Share members pick up musicians at the train station and make food for the artist receptions following each performance. 

The share-model is arguably the secret to presenting sometimes-challenging music. The shares enable performers to be artistically authentic and venturesome. They can improvise in bolder ways than would be possible in conventional commercial venues, and fans can enjoy the results. For example, one quartet included a bassoonist, which is not usually heard in jazz performances. Other artists report that they feel free to explore their artistic frontiers.

The whole setup also changes the audience. As Siegel explains, “Although many of our shareholders do not know who Karl Berger is, most have an open mind and an adventurous attitude. Because our audience expects to be surprised, we can expose them to new experiences. Although we attempt to have balance in our programming, the dilemma facing most presenters of not wanting to offend or get too far ahead of audience tastes does not affect us.”

Now in its seventh season, Jazz Shares has built a sociable community of jazz fans who might otherwise remain isolated at home. Local saxophonist and composer Jason Robinson credits Jazz Shares for creating a very special musical culture in the region: “Jazz Shares does special things for our local community that [don’t] exist in Boston. It barely exists in New York. It’s something that’s quite unique across the country.”

Glenn Siegal explained how Jazz Shares has engendered a very special cultural ecosystem: “Just as plants are dependent on the sun, clean water and healthy soil to thrive, the music needs paying gigs and an appreciative audience to reach full flower. Pioneer Valley Jazz Shares is helping to build that rich inch of topsoil that stands between us and a barren cultural landscape.”

Sounds a lot like commoning to me!

The post Using the CSA Model for Jazz Performance appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Pat attended Glastonbury University and obtained a degree in English and Media Studies

An array of different topics with Pat Kane and how they intertwine with music

We also discuss different topics about reading books and how they’ve played a key role for Pat to use alternative thinking with a more open mind. He discusses Future Fest conferences and enables people an affordable place compared to Wired or TED conferences.

Also, discussed in the interview is some political talk and activism within music and how it has certain messages to purvey to it’s audience. Pat discusses with us how people can network in the music industry and the best methods to selling tickets to your community to drive sales up.

Pat is the ultimate activist for musicians and making sure they have a platform in Future Fest to make sure they have knowledge within their industry. Future Fest is a space where people can be themselves and grow in inspiration as musicians.

Links from the show:

• Future Fest
• Follow Pat Kane on Twitter
• Please subscribe to Ouishare Radio

The post Pat Kane on Future Fest, Play, Music and Activism appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Francesca Pick: “Get paid for every play” is one of the mottos of Resonate. What is this project about?

Peter Harris: If Spotify was a cooperative, that would be Resonate — built and owned by the people that use it. We’ve developed a new listing model called “stream to own,” which aims to solve a lot of the problems around unfair compensation for artists.

What makes Resonate different from other music streaming services?

First, that everyone owns it. It isn’t like entertainment platform Tidal, where only a small number of super-rich rock stars can call themselves owners. This is about everyone — musicians, indie labels, fans, and the people who work and volunteer to make this happen share in decisions and profits, alike.

Apart from that, we don’t have a monthly subscription, but have developed the stream-to own-model because we think that this is where a lot of the problems arise around unfair payments. Stream-to-own makes it more affordable for fans to experience truly engaging music discovery and will track micro-payments through blockchain technology so there’s no dispute about what got played and what needs to get paid.

How would you like to see the music industry transform with the help of services like this?

The music industry needs to become more open and inclusive, with better tools for artists to manage their careers so they can focus on the art and not have to worry about the business and promotion side of things. A lot of energy and efficiency is wasted by having separate silos for everything. We hope to provide tools and solutions to integrate data, content, and payment flows in a number of ways to make music careers much more sustainable.

You’ve been working on this project for a while now. How did it get started?

Resonate was birthed out of 15 years of stewing on the fundamental question of how to adapt music consumption from scarcity to abundance. Streaming service Napster hit in 1999 and changed the model for music consumption completely, almost overnight. But with all of the services and projects that have come and gone since then, it always felt like no one had designed a system that helps us get back to the unique process of passionate music discovery, while also fairly compensating the creators.

We’ve been hearing a lot about blockchain technology recently, but it seems there is often more myth than talk of real-life applications. How will Resonate use blockchain?

There’s a lot of hype around blockchain simply because people don’t understand it yet. Much like they didn’t get the Internet in the late ’90s. At Resonate, we’re going to build a metadata blockchain which will help secure authorship and ownership for creators, whilst allowing other services to increase efficiency, as well.

Resonate is a so-called platform co-op, which is defined as web-based products or services that are collectively owned and governed by those working for the platform or using the service. Your website says you aim to have 70,000 co-owners of your service when you launch. How will this group govern itself and make decisions once you reach this goal?

We plan on using collaborative decision making tools like Loomio to create working groups around key issues, so individual communities can hash out ideas and draft proposals. Although 70,000 people could participate in decision making with such a tool, we doubt everyone will want to stay fully in the loop, because not everyone has time for that. What is key for us is that there is an open access that lets us deal with issues in a truly democratic fashion when they arise and integrate them into the service efficiently.

You’ve just started raising $350K to launch the service. How can people support and be part of this project?

There is lots to do and lots of ways to help! We just launched our crowd campaign calling for people to join as co-owners of the platform and spread the word about the concept. We also have a volunteer channel and a Github account for developers, if you would like to get more involved.

Article cross-posted from OuiShare. Images courtesy of Resonate.

Author Francesca Pick is OuiShare Fest Chair, writer, and project manager. She helps teams working on meaningful projects increase their impact through collaboration and communication. She likes to experiment with new forms of distributed organization and leadership.

Photo by Analog Weapon

The post Take Back the Music – With Platform Coops appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Perhaps more importantly how would that soundtrack be licensed? Since I attended Mutek Montreal last year, I’ve been listening to electronic music. Their magazine features some videos, but I need tracks I can play on my tablet at work.

I felt ecstatic when I stumbled onto Ektoplazm. When I saw the Creative Commons license I knew I’d use some of their tracks in a video I was making.

Ektoplazm offers a vast commons for psytrance fans (and filmmakers).  But reading the blog reveals that keeping a commons alive isn’t easy for one person. Those of us who benefit really need to support the commons. We can offer value through services or even through tips.

Perhaps a commons based reciprocity licensing system is the way to go.

Extracted from http://www.ektoplazm.com/about

The Ektoplazm Web Site

Ektoplazm is a site devoted to psychedelic trance (psytrance), a distinct form of electronic dance music and a vibrant global counterculture. Founded in 2001 by Basilisk, Ektoplazm is now the world’s largest distributor of free (and legal) psytrance music specializing in high-quality Creative Commons-licensed content from netlabels and independent artists, all released in MP3 and lossless CD-quality FLAC and WAV formats. More than 50 million tracks have been downloaded by music lovers all over the planet.

In 2012 Ektoplazm successfully completed a crowdfunding campaign via Indiegogo to fund a massive redevelopment of the web site. Ektoplazm is currently in the midst of it’s metamorphosis; expect a fresh new look and feel as well as a dramatically improved service sometime soon.

The Ektoplazm Netlabel Group

Following the immense growth of the Ektoplazm distribution platform, DJ Basilisk established the Ektoplazm netlabel in 2008, aiming to promote unconventional talent with a professional approach to releasing free music in MP3, FLAC, and WAV format. The label has no defining sound; instead, it is dedicated to showcasing the range and diversity of the global psychedelic trance movement, always with an ear for quality. The Ektoplazm netlabel group now includes Drumlore (for techno) and Omnitropic (for downtempo).

Extracted from http://www.ektoplazm.com/blog/a-beginners-guide-to-ektoplazm

After digesting countless books and articles about free culture I relaunched Ektoplazm in 2006 with the intention of promoting free music licensed under the Creative Commons as aviable alternative to the traditional music distribution system in the psytrance scene. I meant to agitate for change, lead by example, and disrupt the status quo. I aimed to provide artists with another choice beyond conformity or obscurity: massive exposure, artistic freedom, and good karma. At first there wasn’t much of a response to the concept; no one—not even the free labels and artists—took free music seriously in those early days. “You get what you pay for” was a common refrain. To address this sentiment I became a tireless advocate for higher quality standards in free music. My vision: free releases every bit as good as what could be bought in stores. This called for high-resolution album artwork, lossless/CD-quality audio files, and proper mastering. Gradually this vision became a reality as more and more labels and artists came on board with the concept. Nowadays there are many examples of free albums that rival the quality of their commercial counterparts.

Ektoplazm fulfilled its primary mission to legitimize and popularize the distribution of free music in the psytrance scene sometime in 2010. Since then I’ve focused on adding more and more releases to the site to keep up with surging demand for new music—and for access to the platform. By now (summer 2012) Ektoplazm has served more than 6.7 million full releases and 30–35 million tracks to millions of listeners all around the planet. This is rather impressive given that Ektoplazm has catered to such an obscure niche market. To put this in perspective, Bandcamp, the most comparable distribution service for independent musicians of any genre, claims to have served up 34 million downloads to date.

Extracted from http://www.ektoplazm.com/blog/ektoplazm-update-winter-2016

Hello everyone! It has been a while since I posted my last update but, as always, there’s plenty going on behind the scenes here at Ektoplazm. 2015 was another great year and I ended up posting 296 new releases—down a bit from the previous year but still a huge amount of fresh music graciously donated by Ektoplazm’s label and artist partners. Another milestone was hit when we surpassed 17 million downloads—and that’s for whole releases! Multiply that figure by a conservative estimate of 8 tracks per release and you get something like 136 million tracks downloaded since 2007. Not bad for one guy with a blog and a lot of help from underground musicians keen to spread the vibe!

In other news I will be putting a temporary freeze on processing new release applications for the wintertime. I have to take some time away from managing the day-to-day affairs of the site for a little while. I will say more about this in the next update. Thank you for your patience and understanding!

The post Project Of The Day: Ektoplazm appeared first on P2P Foundation.

singer-songwriter Jewelia at Staycation Live 2014 / Keith Parkins

Great music is priceless, bad music is worthless. — Steve Lawson

The best way to support an artist is to pay then directly. — Ethan Diamond

When I am at a live music festival for example Staycation Live and the musicians tell the crowd to find them on iTunes I groan, when they tell the crowd to find them on spotify I want to scream out loud.

Why oh why, are they sending people to sites where everyone gets ripped off, where everyone gets a raw deal?

Amazon or iTunes, take a big cut, iTunes even charges for being there, spotify you do not even want to go down that sewer. The least said about spotify the better, other than major record labels have a stake and artists receive a pittance.

Bandcamp by contrast, takes somewhere between ten and fifteen per cent. It used to be a straight thirteen per cent.

With Amazon, a few seconds lofi sample. That is to insult both the musicians and those wishing to listen. How can you judge a piece of music in a few seconds except maybe to reject as unbelievably bad?

On the other hand on bandcamp, can listen to entire album in reasonable quality mp3 128.

Bandcamp was co-founded by Ethan Diamond as a site for musicians.

The principle behind bandcamp is if you want to support musicians then pay them directly, not pay a global corporation in the hope that something trickles down to the artists.

Two years ago, I found few artists knew about bandcamp, now I am finding more and more do, and it offers both them and their fans a very good deal. And yet what is strange, they are still directing fans anywhere other than bandcamp, even when they themselves are on bandcamp.

It is not only they and their fans, by directing to bandcamp, they benefit all the other independent artists who are on bandcamp.

If you have the resources to record an album and if not, play a few gigs, crowd source, then you do not need a record label.

Sometimes artists have their own kludgy media player on their website. Why re-invent an inferior wheel, when you can embed bandcamp media player?

From the perspective of the fans, you can listen to an album on-line, the entire album in reasonable quality mp3 128 unlike Amazon or iTunes where all you get is a few seconds lofi sample.

Download is easy. And can download hifi not lofi, mp3 320, or better still studio quality non-lossy FLAC.

Monsters – Jewelia

Fans can choose to pay more. Many do. Jewelia recently reported someone paying £30 for an album listed at £5 (or maybe it was for the free download).

Monsters her début album, limited edition signed copy or digital download.

Band Camp Fan Support

Artists set a low price, sometimes free, leaving fans to pay more if they wish. Because fans are not being ripped off, because they know the money is going to the artist, they quite happily pay more.

Selling Right Now: Monsters sold for £25, £20 over the asking price.

Selling Right Now: The Kitchen Table sold for £16, £7 over asking price.

Bandcamp has a very unusual feature. What is selling is shown in real time, including how much is being paid over and above the asking price. This is in addition to a listing of the top selling albums.

Artists get the data.

Bandcamp is a model of how websites should be.

Bandcamp is not backed by venture capitalists. It is not supported by advertising or abuse of personal data. It is supported by the music community.

Because of the way bandcamp works, especially its sharing button, word, essentially word of mouth, spreads laterally, or in other words peer to peer.

In essence this is the gift economy, sharing, collaborative economy at work.

If you like a piece of music or an artist, you spread word of mouth using social media.

Those who like, will spread the word, they may download, they may toss some money by the way of the artist, they may attend a gig.

Serendipity plays a part, as people stumble across something they may like, or a friend may tell them, or share with them. I stumbled across Quantic whilst writing this article on bandcamp.

The important aspect here is sharing.

Those who share, do not get anything out of it, thus a gift, but the artist may benefit through their collaboration. The artist will then feel it is a viable way to earn a living, and do what they wish to do, play and produce more music.

Everyone has a stake in the outcome.

It would be an interesting social experiment, having mentioned Jewelia, what difference she sees.

The big record labels hate the internet, they complain of piracy, criminalise those who wish to listen to music.

Bandcamp turns this on its head, far from seeing the internet as bad, sees as a force for good, the means to share music.

If I listen or download music for free, no one has lost out. On the other hand, if I like, I may buy, I may attend a gig, I may tell others. In other words an opportunity has been created.

And it is a truism, I cannot like a piece of music until I have heard it. Through sharing, makes it more likely to hear it.

Those artists who only make available a few seconds lofi sample, or in too many cases, nothing at all, are not doing themselves or their fans any favours.

Hope & Social make their music available for free for digital downlands, the productions costs for a CD. They do not get ripped off. Turn up to one of their gigs, buy a CD, you set the price.

Cotton Wool and Knotted Wood – Hope & Social

Cotton Wool and Knotted Wood a beautiful magical live acoustic album from Hope & Social is on a pay-what-you-think-it-is-worth or what-you-can-afford model. For CD it is minimum price of what the CD costs to produce (plus shipping).

Into the Trees – Zoe Keating

Cellist Zoe Keating published her accounts on-line, to enable people to see a breakdown of her income.

2013 music sales & streaming numbers for a middle-aged mom in a non-album cycle http://t.co/4YEV44vDGB

— Zoe Keating (@zoecello) February 21, 2014

• iTunes 32,170 single tracks and 3,862 albums netted her just over $38,195
• Bandcamp 185 tracks and 2,899 albums netted her $25,575
• Amazon mixture of physical and mp3 earned her $11,571
• Spotify 403,035 streams earned her $1,764

Apple keeps 30% of iTunes sales, bandcamp takes a 10% cut of sales.

On bandcamp, albums considerably outsell tracks.

Jazz pianist and composer Will Todd is a classic of how not to.

I happened upon a rehearsal in a church for a concert that evening. A large poster for Lux Et Veritas. Had Will Todd been around I may have bought a copy of Lux Et Veritas. I was told he would be there in the evening. I checked out his website. Big record label outmoded thinking stamped all over it. Snippets of videos, lofi mp3 samples. This does absolutely no justice to the works of Will Todd and is an insult to those who may like and wish to listen to his music. He is not doing himself any favours.

What is the point, releasing music, then making it difficult to listen to?

Were I a radio producer, not a writer, they would be beating a path to my door asking to be put on my play list.

Very strange, musicians release music, which one would suspect they wish one to listen to, then make it difficult if not impossible to listen to.

Going back to the musicians telling the crowd where to find them, this time they say find us on bandcamp.

This makes a huge difference. Because of sharing, anyone who finds them, can click share, and immediately share with their friends, hey this is who I saw, they were great, word spreads. Or they may write about them and embed the bandcamp media player. Why write about music if no one can listen to what you are writing about? That would be as dumb as writing about a book or an author and not citing a few passages. Or writing about a work of art without a picture.

Although bandcamp is a centralised site not peer to peer per se, how it works in practice is peer to peer. There is lateral communication, and that is the key to the success of bandcamp, enabled by a share button.

We should never underestimate the power of sharing, of word of mouth.

What bandcamp does for music and the spoken word, leanpub does for the written word.

In the sharing economy, collaborative commons, a website should be an enabler that charges a small fee for its role, made self-financing by the users.

Bandcamp and leanpub fulfil that role.

Note: WordPress should embed bandcamp media player, with which can illustrate points made. For reasons not known, it is not possible to on P2P Foundation (even though running wordpress). I am having to work around the problem, album cover, click through for album, where can listen on-line, share, download. Or go to expanded version of this article on Medium.

Note: Reposted on wordpress (where possible to embed bandcamp media player). An expanded version of this article on Medium, with additional examples and extensive notes.

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